Thoracic Surgery

At Northside Hospital, a leader in providing state-of-the-art surgical
services, more surgeries are performed than at any other hospital in
Georgia. New technologies have transformed how procedures of the
lungs and esophagus are being performed.

Minimally invasive VATS (video-assisted thoracic surgery) lobectomy for
lung cancer has been performed at Northside for some time and Northside
ranks as one of the leaders in Georgia in such procedures. With
the addition of robotic surgery, Northside is expanding its expertise in
minimally invasive thoracic techniques.

Available procedures include:

Nuss
repair, with thorascopic and open techniques for pectus
excavatum (funnel chest)

Robotic-assisted technology has had a profound impact on procedures for
the lungs and esophagus. Northside was one of the first hospitals
in Georgia to use the minimally invasive technique for thoracic
surgery. Robotic surgery is a much less invasive alternative to
traditional open thorocotomy, lobectomy and thymectomy surgeries.
The technology allows surgeons to treat patients with minimal trauma to
the chest wall and ribs.

Video-Assisted Thoracic Surgery (VATS)

Physicians at Northside are now using state-of-the-art endoscopes in
some head and neck endocrine procedures to safely remove lesions in
low-risk patients. These surgeries, called Video Assisted
Thyroidectomy (VAT) and Video Assisted Parathyroidectomy (VAP), bear
little resemblance to the traditional techniques used in the last fifty
years.

Instead of a larger incision, patients receive a roughly ¾-inch incision
in the front of the neck, through which the operation is managed.
Critical structures such as nerves and blood vessels are easily
visualized and bleeding controlled using high-resolution ultrasound and
nuclear parathyroid scans. When the information from these studies
is combined with Rapid Intraoperative Parathyroid Hormone Monitoring,
the surgeon can have a high level of confidence that a complete
resection has been performed.